Limits of Stoichiometric Network Analysis

As this example shows, stoichiometric network analysis yields only possibilities of reaction mechanisms, it does not lead to the determination of which of many possible reaction pathways corresponds to experiments. We need to know the rate coefficients of the system to determine paths in the system by which reactants proceed to form products. This distinction has been overlooked in a number of studies on complex biochemical reacdon mechanisms (see Schilling et al. [82] and references therein). 

Acknowledgments This chapter is based mainly on work published in refs. [1-9], where the ideas of the stoichiometric network analysis [10] were ntihzed to identify several distinct topological features in chemical networks that provide oscillatory instabilities and from that derive a classification system for chemical oscillators and species taking part in these oscillations. 

Oscillations in chemical systems. II. Thorough analysis of temporal oscillation in the bromate-cerium-malonic acid system. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1972, 94, 8649-8664. 

Feinberg, M. Complex balancing in general kinetic systems. Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal. 1972, 49, 187-194 Chemical-reaction network structure and the stability of complex isothermal reactors. 1. The deficiency-zero and deficiency-one theorems. Chem. Eng. Set 1987, 42, 2229-2268 Chemical-reaction network structure and the stability of complex isothermal reactors. 2. Multiple steady-states for networks of deficiency one. Chem. Eng. Set 1988, 43, 1-25. 

Epstein, I. R. Systematic design of chemical oscillators. 58. Feedback analysis of mechanisms for chemical oscillators. Adv. Chem. Phys. 1990, 79, 269-299. 

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