The Linear-Noise Approximation and moment-closure approximations for stochastic chemical kinetics

This is a short review of two common approximations in stochastic chemical and biochemical kinetics. It will appear as Chapter 6 in the book “Quantitative Biology: Theory, Computational Methods and Examples of Models” edited by Brian Munsky, Lev Tsimring and Bill Hlavacek (to be published in late 2017/2018 by MIT Press). All chapter references in this article refer to chapters in the aforementioned book.