Families of toric chemical reaction networks

We study families of chemical reaction networks whose positive steady states are toric, and therefore can be parameterized by monomials. Families are constructed algorithmically from a core network; we show that if a family member is multistationary, then so are all subsequent networks in the family. Further, we address the questions of model selection and experimental design for families by investigating the algebraic dependencies of the chemical concentrations using matroids. Given a family with toric steady states and a constant number of conservation relations, we construct a matroid that encodes important information regarding the steady state behaviour of the entire family. Among other things, this gives necessary conditions for the distinguishability of families of reaction networks with respect to a data set of measured chemical concentrations. We illustrate our results using multi-site phosphorylation networks.