The gut microbiome comprises a complex population of different bacterial species that are essential to human health. In recent years, scientists across several fields have found that changes in the gut microbiome can be linked to a wide variety of diseases, notably colorectal cancer (CRC). Multiple studies have revealed that a higher abundance of certain bacteria, such as Fusobacterium nucleatum and Parvimonas micra, is typically associated with CRC progression.
Based on these findings, researchers have developed various artificial intelligence (AI) models to help them analyze which bacterial species are useful as CRC biomarkers. However, most of these models rely on what is known as “global explanations,” meaning that they can only consider the entirety of the input data to make predictions. As a result, such models are unable to identify bacterial species that could be relevant CRC biomarkers for smaller, less-representative groups of patients.