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The geometric copolymerization model is a recently introduced statistical Markov chain model. Here, we investigate its practicality. First, several approaches to identify the optimal model parameters from observed copolymer fingerprints are evaluated using Monte Carlo simulated data. Directly optimizing the parameters is robust against noise but has impractically long running times. A compromise between robustness and running time is found by exploiting the relationship between monomer concentrations calculated by ordinary differential equations and the geometric model. Second, we investigate the applicability of the model to copolymerizations beyond living polymerization and show that the model is useful for copolymerizations involving termination and depropagation reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years, copolymerization has been studied using mathematical and statistical models. Here, we present new Markov chain models for copolymerization kinetics: the Bernoulli and Geometric models. They model copolymer synthesis as a random process and are based on a basic reaction scheme. In contrast to previous Markov chain approaches to copolymerization, both models take variable chain lengths and time-dependent monomer probabilities into account and allow for computing sequence likelihoods and copolymer fingerprints. Fingerprints can be computed from copolymer mass spectra, potentially allowing us to estimate the model parameters from measured fingerprints. We compare both models against Monte Carlo simulations. We find that computing the models is fast and memory efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]