WMRCA + : a weighted majority rule-based clustering method for cancer subtype prediction using metabolic gene sets.

Abstract

Accurate classification of cancer subtypes plays a pivotal role in advancing precision medicine. In this study, we introduce WMRCA + , a novel clustering approach based on a weighted majority rule that integrates multi-omics data and incorporates metabolic gene sets to robustly determine the optimal number of clusters for tumor subtype identification. WMRCA + evaluates clustering performance using ten internal metrics and offers comprehensive functionalities for data preprocessing and visualization. When applied to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) lung cancer dataset using lipid metabolism-related gene sets, WMRCA + outperformed widely used clustering algorithms-including iCluster, SNF, NMF, CC, and CNMF-achieving an AUC of 0.947. WMRCA + provides robust, interpretable, and biologically meaningful clustering results, offering a valuable tool for improving the accuracy of cancer subtype prediction. The WMRCA + R package is freely available at https://github.com/guojunliu7/WMRCA .