Genome sequence data is widely accepted as complex data and is still growing in an exponential rate. Classification of genome sequences plays a crucial role as it finds its applications in the area of biology, medical and forensics etc. For classification, Genome sequences can be represented in terms of features. More number of less significant features leads to lower accuracy in classification task. Feature selection addresses this issue by selecting the most important features which aids to improve the accuracy and lessens the computational complexity. In this research, Hybrid Grey Wolf-Whale Optimization Algorithm (HGWWOA) is proposed for Genome sequence classification. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using 23 benchmark objective functions along with Convolutional Neural Network classifier and its efficiency is verified using a novel metric namely “Feature Reduction Rate”. The proposed optimization algorithm can be applied for any optimization problems. In this research work, the proposed algorithm is used for classification of Corona Virus genome sequences. Performance comparison of the proposed and existing algorithms was carried out and it is evident that the performance of proposed algorithm exceeds the previous algorithms with an accuracy of 98.2%.

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