Bonding Grammars

Abstract

We introduce bonding grammars, a graph grammar formalism developed to model DNA computation by means of graph transformations. It is a modification of fusion grammars introduced by Kreowski, Kuske and Lye in 2017. Bonding is a graph transformation that consists of merging two hyperedges into a single larger one. We show why bonding models interaction between DNA molecules better than fusion. Then, we investigate formal properties of this formalism. Firstly, we study the relation between bonding grammars and hyperedge replacement grammars proving that each of these kinds of grammars generates a language the other one cannot generate. Secondly, we prove that bonding grammars naturally generalise regular sticker systems. Finally, we prove that the membership problem for bonding grammars is NP-complete and, moreover, that some bonding grammar generates an NP-complete set.