Accurate prediction of glucose concentration and identification of major contributing features from hardly distinguishable near-infrared spectroscopy

•Performance of six machine learning methods for in vitro glucose concentration prediction were tested.•SVMR was the most robust machine learning method for glucose concentration prediction.•Major contributing features of NIR spectra data were identified and compared with different machine leaning methods.•The major contributing features of NIR spectra data vary greatly for different machine learning models.