Mathematical Analysis of Chemical Reaction Systems
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Mathematical Analysis of Chemical Reaction Systems Polly Y. Yu ∗ Gheorghe Craciun y May 29, 2018 Abstract. The use of mathematical methods for the analysis of chemical reaction systems has a very long history, and involves many types of models: deterministic versus stochastic, continuous versus discrete, and homogeneous versus spatially distributed. Here we focus on mathematical models based on deterministic mass-action kinetics. These models are systems of coupled nonlinear differential equations on the positive orthant. We explain how mathematical properties of the solutions of mass-action systems are strongly related to key properties of the networks of chemical reactions that generate them, such as specific versions of reversibility and feedback interactions. 1 Introduction Standard deterministic mass-action kinetics says that the rate at which a reaction occurs is directly proportional to the concentrations of the reactant species. For example, according to mass-action kinetics, the rate of the reaction X + X X is of the form kx x , where xi 1 2 ! 3 1 2 is the concentration of species Xi and k is a positive constant. If we are given a network that contains several reactions, then terms of this type can be added together to obtain a mass- action model for the whole network (see example below). The law of mass-action was first formulated by Guldberg and Waage [39] and has recently celebrated its 150th anniversary [69]. Mathematical models that use mass-action kinetics (or kinetics derived from the law of mass-action, such as Michaelis-Menten kinetics or Hill kinetics) are ubiquitous in chemistry and biology [1, 16, 28, 30, 36, 40, 45, 47, 67, 69]. The possible behaviors of mass-action systems also vary wildly; there are systems that have a single steady state for all choices of rate constants (Figure 2(a)), systems that have multiple steady states (Figure 2(b)), systems that oscillate (Figure 2(c)), and systems (e.g. a version of the Lorentz system) that admit chaotic behavior [68]. To illustrate mass-action kinetics, consider the reaction network (N1) in Figure 1. Accord- arXiv:1805.10371v1 [q-bio.MN] 25 May 2018 ing to mass-action kinetics, the network (N1) gives rise to the following system of differential 4 equations on the positive orthant R>0: ∗Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison; partially supported by NSERC PGS-D and NSF grant 1412643. yDepartment of Mathematics and Department of Biomolecular Chemistry, University of Wisconsin- Madison; partially supported by NSF grant 1412643. 1 k1 X1 2X2 k2 k3 X1 + X3 2X1 (N1) k4 k6 k5 X2 + X4 Figure 1: Example network (N1). dx 1 = k x + k x2 + k x x k x2 2k x2 + k x x dt − 1 1 2 2 3 1 3 − 4 1 − 5 1 6 2 4 dx 2 = 2k x 2k x2 + k x2 k x x (1) dt 1 1 − 2 2 5 1 − 6 2 4 dx 3 = k x x + k x2 + k x x dt − 3 1 3 4 1 6 2 4 dx 4 = k x2 k x x ; dt 5 1 − 6 2 4 where xi = [Xi] is the concentration of species Xi. T At any given time, the concentration vector x(t) = (x1(t); x2(t); : : : ; xn(t)) is a point n n in R>0. Tracing the path over time gives a trajectory in the state space R>0. For example, Figure 2 shows several trajectories of three mass-action systems. For this reason, any con- T centration vector x = (x1; x2; : : : ; xn) is also called a state of the system, and we will refer to it as such. [X2] (a) [X2] (b) [X2] (c) [X1] [X1] [X1] Figure 2: Phase portraits showing possible behaviors of mass-action systems: (a) uniqueness and stability of steady state, (b) bistability, and (c) oscillation. The mass-action systems, with the rate constants labeled on the 0:7 1 1 1 3 2 2 reaction edges, are (a) ? −−! X1 −! X1 +X2 −! ?, (b) X1 +X2 −! X1 )−*− 2X1 and X1 +X2 −! X2 )−*− 2X2, 1 1 (c) a version of the Selkov model, or \Brusselator", whose network (N2) is shown in Figure 3 and rate constants given in Remark 2.5. In vector-based form, this dynamical system can also be written as 2 0x 1 0 11 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 − dBx2C B 2 C 2B 2C B 0 C B C= k1x1B C+ k2x2B− C+ k3x1x3B C dt@x3A @ 0 A @ 0 A @ 1A − x4 0 0 0 0 11 0 21 0 1 1 − − 2B 0 C 2B 1 C B 1C + k4x B C+ k5x B C+ k6x2x4B− C : (2) 1@ 1 A 1@ 0 A @ 1 A 0 1 1 − In order to write down a general mathematical formula for mass-action systems we need to introduce more definitions and notation. The objects that are the source or the target of a reaction are called complexes. For example, the complexes in the network (N1) are X1, 2X2,X1 + X3, 2X1, and X2 + X4. Their 011 001 011 021 001 B0C B2C B0C B0C B1C complex vectors are the vectors B C, B C, B C, B C, and B C, respectively. @0A @0A @1A @0A @0A 0 0 0 0 1 Let us introduce the notation xy = xy1 xy2 xyn (3) 1 2 ··· n T n T n for any two vectors x = (x1; x2; : : : ; xn) R>0 and y = (y1; y2; : : : ; yn) R≥0. Then the 2 2 2 y monomials x1, x2, x1x3;::: , in the reaction rate functions in (2) can be represented as x , where x is the vector of species concentrations and y is the complex vector of the source of the corresponding reaction. For example, X1 +X3 is the source of the reaction X1 +X3 X4, 011 ! B0C its complex vector is B C, and the corresponding reaction rate function in (2) is k3x1x3. @1A 0 The vectors in (2) are called reaction vectors, and they are the differences between the complex vectors of the target and source of each reaction; a reaction vector records the stoichiometry of the reaction. For example, the reaction vector corresponding to X1 + X3 0 11 001 011 ! − B 0 C B0C B0C X4 is B C = B C B C. @ 1A @0A − @1A − 1 1 0 There is a naturally defined oriented graph underlying a reaction network, namely the graph where the vertices are complexes, and the edges are reactions. Therefore, a chemical reaction network can be regarded as a Euclidean embedded graph G = (V; E), where n V R is the set of vertices of the graph, and E V V is the set of oriented edges of G. ⊂ ≥0 ⊂ × For example, (N2) depicted in Figure 3 is the network for a version of the Selkov model 2 for glycolysis. Its Euclidean embedded graph G in R≥0 is shown in Figure 4. 3 Y k1 k3 k7 k2 k4 2X + Y 3X (N2) k8 k6 ∅ X k5 Figure 3: Example network (N2), a version of the Selkov model for glycolysis. It can also be regarded as a version of the \Brusselator". Y 1 • • X • 1• 2 3• Figure 4: The Euclidean embedded graph G of the network (N2) as shown in Figure 3. Given a reaction network with its Euclidean embedded graph G, and given a vector of reaction rate constants k, we can use the notation (3) to write the mass-action system generated by (G; k) as shown in (4) dx X y 0 = ky!y0 x y y : (4) dt − y!y02G The stoichiometric subspace S of a reaction network G is the vector space spanned by its reaction vectors: S = span y0 y : y y0 G : (5) Rf − ! 2 g n n The stoichiometric compatibility class of x0 R> is the set (x0+S)>0 = (x0+S) R> , 2 0 \ 0 i.e., the intersection between the affine set x0 + S and the positive orthant. Note that the solution x(t) of the mass-action system with initial condition x0 is confined to (x0 + S)>0 for all future time, i.e., each stoichiometric compatibility class is a forward invariant set [30]. We say that a network or a graph G is reversible if y0 y is a reaction whenever ! y y0 is a reaction. We say that G is weakly reversible if every reaction is part of an ! oriented cycle, i.e., each connected component of the graph G is strongly connected. The network (N1) is weakly reversible, while (N2) is reversible. When the underlying graph G is weakly reversible, we will see that the solutions of the mass-action system are known (or conjectured) to have many important properties, such as existence of positive steady states for all parameter values, persistence, permanence, and if the network satisfies some additional assumptions, also global stability [17, 18, 23, 30, 40, 42]. For example, in the next section we will see that the mass-action systems generated by network (N1) and any values of rate constants are globally stable, i.e., there exists a globally attracting steady state within each stoichiometric compatibility class. 4 2 Results Inspired by Thermodynamic Principles The idea of relating chemical kinetics and thermodynamics has a very long history, starting with Wegscheider [70], and continuing with Lewis [53], Onsager [58], Wei and Prater [71], Aris [8], Shear [63], Higgins [41], and many others. For example, the notion of \detailed- balanced systems" was studied in depth, and this notion has a strong connection to the thermodynamical properties of microscopic reversibility which goes back to Boltzmann [12, 13, 38].