Carryover of a Saddle-Node Bifurcation After Transforming a Parameter into a Variable

In this article, we introduce and study the carryover of a saddle-node bifurcation, a concept that describes how a saddle-node bifurcation of a dynamical system is carried over into an extended dynamical system obtained by transforming one of the parameters of the original system into a variable. We show that additional transversality and singularity conditions are needed to guarantee the carryover of a saddle-node bifurcation and provide a graphical methodology with a two-parameter bifurcation diagram to verify that such conditions are met. The results are applied to a gene activation model when the parameter describing the signal for activation is transformed into a variable, and to a cell cycle regulatory model when the parameter describing the cell mass is transformed into a variable. In both cases, we show that a saddle-node bifurcation carryover takes place.