Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks

Biological systems are frequently viewed as performing computations that are implemented by chemical transformations underlying the turn-over of their molecular components. In chemical reaction networks, computation may refer to at least two fundamentally different aspects: concentrations of molecul...

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Main Authors: Christoph Flamm, Daniel Merkle, Peter F Stadler
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:Journal of Physics: Complexity
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/2632-072X/adb7b1
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author Christoph Flamm
Daniel Merkle
Peter F Stadler
author_facet Christoph Flamm
Daniel Merkle
Peter F Stadler
author_sort Christoph Flamm
collection DOAJ
description Biological systems are frequently viewed as performing computations that are implemented by chemical transformations underlying the turn-over of their molecular components. In chemical reaction networks, computation may refer to at least two fundamentally different aspects: concentrations of molecules, and molecular structures. The latter can be captured by modeling chemical reactions as a rewriting system acting on structural formulae, i.e. labeled graphs. We investigate the computational power of double-pushout (DPO) graph rewriting restricted to chemical graphs and show that chemical graph rewriting is sufficient to emulate Turing machines and two-tag systems on polymeric graphs that act as tapes. Moreover, we raise the question whether chemistry, modeled as DPO graph rewriting together with some additional form of chemical programs, may be computationally universal in the strong sense, i.e. capable of computing any computable function on chemical graphs.
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spelling doaj-art-904bfe6ad8a04df7bed391772b7b75aa2025-08-20T02:46:20ZengIOP PublishingJournal of Physics: Complexity2632-072X2025-01-016101501410.1088/2632-072X/adb7b1Computation in chemical graph rewriting networksChristoph Flamm0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5500-2415Daniel Merkle1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7792-375XPeter F Stadler2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5016-5191Department of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Vienna , Währinger Straße 17, A-1090 Wien, AustriaAlgorithmic Cheminformatics Group, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University , D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany; Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty of Science, University of Southern Denmark , Odense M DK-5230, DenmarkDepartment of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Vienna , Währinger Straße 17, A-1090 Wien, Austria; Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioinformatics, Zuse School of Embedded and Composite AI (SECAI) Dresden-Leipzig, and Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (ScaDS.AI) Dresden-Leipzig, University Leipzig , D-04107 Leipzig, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences , D-04103 Leipzig, Germany; Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Sede Bogotá, Ciudad Universitaria, COL-111321 Bogotá, D.C., Colombia; Santa Fe Institute , Santa Fe, NM 87501, United States of AmericaBiological systems are frequently viewed as performing computations that are implemented by chemical transformations underlying the turn-over of their molecular components. In chemical reaction networks, computation may refer to at least two fundamentally different aspects: concentrations of molecules, and molecular structures. The latter can be captured by modeling chemical reactions as a rewriting system acting on structural formulae, i.e. labeled graphs. We investigate the computational power of double-pushout (DPO) graph rewriting restricted to chemical graphs and show that chemical graph rewriting is sufficient to emulate Turing machines and two-tag systems on polymeric graphs that act as tapes. Moreover, we raise the question whether chemistry, modeled as DPO graph rewriting together with some additional form of chemical programs, may be computationally universal in the strong sense, i.e. capable of computing any computable function on chemical graphs.https://doi.org/10.1088/2632-072X/adb7b1chemical reaction networksdouble pushout graph rewritingTuring machinetwo-tag systemchemical graph rewritingstrong computational completeness
spellingShingle Christoph Flamm
Daniel Merkle
Peter F Stadler
Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
Journal of Physics: Complexity
chemical reaction networks
double pushout graph rewriting
Turing machine
two-tag system
chemical graph rewriting
strong computational completeness
title Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
title_full Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
title_fullStr Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
title_full_unstemmed Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
title_short Computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
title_sort computation in chemical graph rewriting networks
topic chemical reaction networks
double pushout graph rewriting
Turing machine
two-tag system
chemical graph rewriting
strong computational completeness
url https://doi.org/10.1088/2632-072X/adb7b1
work_keys_str_mv AT christophflamm computationinchemicalgraphrewritingnetworks
AT danielmerkle computationinchemicalgraphrewritingnetworks
AT peterfstadler computationinchemicalgraphrewritingnetworks