Structural bifurcation analysis in chemical reaction networks

Abstract

In living cells, chemical reactions form complex networks. Dynamics arising from such networks are the origins of biological functions. We propose a mathematical method to analyze bifurcation behaviors of network systems using their structures alone. Specifically, a whole network is decomposed into subnetworks, and for each of them the bifurcation condition can be studied independently. Further, parameters inducing bifurcations and chemicals exhibiting bifurcations can be determined on the network. We illustrate our theory using hypothetical and real networks.