Isolating structural errors in reaction networks in systems biology

The growing complexity of reaction-based models necessitates early detection and resolution of model errors. Considerable work has been done on the detection of mass balance errors, especially atomic mass analysis (AMA) (which compares the counts of atoms in the reactants and products) and Linear Programming analysis (which detects stoichiometric inconsistencies). This article extends model error checking to include: (i) certain structural errors in reaction networks and (ii) error isolation. First, we consider the balance of chemical structures (moieties) between reactants and products. This balance is expected in many biochemical reactions, but the imbalance of chemical structures cannot be detected if the analysis is done in units of atomic masses. Second, we improve on error isolation for stoichiometric inconsistencies by identifying a small number of reactions and/or species that cause the error. Doing so simplifies error remediation.