Structural identifiability analysis of linear reaction-advection-diffusion processes in mathematical biology

Effective application of mathematical models to interpret biological data and make accurate predictions often requires that model parameters are identifiable. Approaches to assess the so-called structural identifiability of models are well-established for ordinary differential equation models, yet there are no commonly adopted approaches that can be applied to assess the structural identifiability of the partial differential equation (PDE) models that are requisite to capture spatial features inherent to many phenomena. The differential algebra approach to structural identifiability has recently been demonstrated to be applicable to several specific PDE models. In this brief article, we present general methodology for performing structural identifiability analysis on partially observed linear reaction-advection-diffusion (RAD) PDE models. We show that the differential algebra approach can always, in theory, be applied to linear RAD models. Moreover, despite the perceived complexity introduced by the addition of advection and diffusion terms, identifiability of spatial analogues of non-spatial models cannot decrease structural identifiability. Finally, we show that our approach can also be applied to a class of non-linear PDE models that are linear in the unobserved variables, and conclude by discussing future possibilities and computational cost of performing structural identifiability analysis on more general PDE models in mathematical biology.