Dynamical properties of discrete reaction networks (Q2510389)

Reaction networks describe the possible transformations between species in a system, subject to stoichiometry constraints. They are commonly used to model the evolution of populations of species subject to transformations following an imposed stoichiometry. In this paper, the authors focus on the efficient characterization of dynamical properties of discrete reaction networks (DRNs). DRNs can be seen as modeling the underlying discrete nondeterministic transitions of stochastic models of reactions networks. In that sense, any proof of non-reachability in DRNs directly applies to any concrete stochastic models, independently of kinetics laws and constants. Moreover, if stochastic kinetic rates never vanish, reachability properties are equivalent in the two settings. They analyze two global dynamical properties of DRNs: irreducibility, i.e., the ability to reach any discrete state from any other state; and recurrence, i.e., the ability to return to any initial state. Their results consider both the verification of such properties when species are present in a large copy number, and in the general case. They obtain necessary and sufficient conditions, which involve algebraic conditions on the network reactions and in most cases can be verified using linear programming. Finally, they discuss the relationship of DRN irreducibility and recurrence with dynamical properties of stochastic and continuous models of reaction networks.