A linear elimination framework

Key insights in molecular biology, such as enzyme kinetics, protein allostery and gene regulation emerged from quantitative analysis based on time-scale separation, allowing internal complexity to be eliminated and resulting in the well-known formulas of Michaelis-Menten, Monod-Wyman-Changeux and Ackers-Johnson-Shea. In systems biology, steady-state analysis has yielded eliminations that reveal emergent properties of multi-component networks. Here we show that these analyses of nonlinear biochemical systems are consequences of the same linear framework, consisting of a labelled, directed graph on which a Laplacian dynamics is defined, whose steady states can be algorithmically calculated. Analyses previously considered distinct are revealed as identical, while new methods of analysis become feasible.