Mining housekeeping genes with a Naive Bayes classifier

BACKGROUND: Traditionally, housekeeping and tissue specific genes have been classified using direct assay of mRNA presence across different tissues, but these experiments are costly and the results not easy to compare and reproduce. RESULTS: In this work, a Naive Bayes classifier based only on physical and functional characteristics of genes already available in databases, like exon length and measures of chromatin compactness, has achieved a 97% success rate in classification of human housekeeping genes (93% for mouse and 90% for fruit fly). CONCLUSION: The newly obtained lists of housekeeping and tissue specific genes adhere to the expected functions and tissue expression patterns for the two classes. Overall, the classifier shows promise, and in the future additional attributes might be included to improve its discriminating power.