International Journal of Intelligence Science, 2015, 5, 158-172
Published Online April 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ijis
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ijis.2015.53014
How to cite this paper: Márquez, E., et al. (2015) A Decision Support System Based on Multi-Agent Technology for Gene
Expression Analysis. International Journal of Intelligence Science, 5, 158-172. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ijis.2015.53014
A Decision Support System Based on
Multi-Agent Technology for Gene
Expression Analysis
Edna Márquez
1
, Jesús Savage
1
, Jaime Berumen
2
, Christian Lemaitre
3
,
Ana Lilia Laureano-Cruces
4
, Ana Espinosa
2
, Ron Leder
1
, Alfredo Weitzenfeld
5
1
Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F., México
2
Unidad de Medicina Genómica, Hospital General de México, México D.F., México
3
Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicación, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México D.F., México
4
Departamento de Sistemas, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México D.F., México
5
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
Email: cednam@gmail.com , robotssavage@gmail.com , jaimeberumen@hotmail.com , lemaitre@gmail.com ,
clc@azc.uam.mx , anaesga@hotmail.com , rleder@ieee.org , aweitzenfeld@usf.edu
Received 13 March 2015; accepted 21 April 2015; published 27 April 2015
Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract
The genetic microarrays give to researchers a huge amount of data of many diseases represented
by intensities of gene expression. In genomic medicine gene expression analysis is guided to find
strategies for prevention and treatment of diseases with high rate of mortality like the different
cancers. So, genomic medicine requires the use of complex information technology. The purpose
of our paper is to present a multi-agent system developed in order to improve gene expression
analysis with the automation of tasks about identification of genes involved in a cancer, and classi-
fication of tumors according to molecular biology. Agents that integrate the system, carry out
reading files of intensity data of genes from microarrays, pre-processing of this information, and
with machine learning methods make groups of genes involved in the process of a disease as well
as the classification of samples that could propose new subtypes of tumors difficult to identify
based on their morphology. Our results we prove that the multi-agent system requires a minimal
intervention of user, and the agents generate knowledge that reduce the time and complexity of
the work of prevention and diagnosis, and thus allow a more effective treatment of tumors.
Keywords
Multi-Agent Systems, Machine Learning, Bioinformatics, Gene Expression Analysis