Graph-theoretic analysis of multistationarity using degree theory

Carsten Conradi and Maya Mincheva

Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), 2017, vol. 133, issue C, 76-90

Abstract: Biochemical mechanisms with mass action kinetics are often modeled by systems of polynomial differential equations (DE). Determining directly if the DE system has multiple equilibria (multistationarity) is difficult for realistic systems, since they are large, nonlinear and contain many unknown parameters. Mass action biochemical mechanisms can be represented by a directed bipartite graph with species and reaction nodes. Graph-theoretic methods can then be used to assess the potential of a given biochemical mechanism for multistationarity by identifying structures in the bipartite graph referred to as critical fragments. In this article we present a graph-theoretic method for conservative biochemical mechanisms characterized by bounded species concentrations, which makes the use of degree theory arguments possible. We illustrate the results with an example of a mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) network.

Keywords: Biochemical mechanisms; Mass-action kinetics; Multistationarity; Bipartite graph; MAPK network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378475415001755
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:matcom:v:133:y:2017:i:c:p:76-90

DOI: 10.1016/j.matcom.2015.08.010

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM) is currently edited by Robert Beauwens

More articles in Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().