Stochastic reaction network models are widely utilized in biology and
chemistry to describe the probabilistic dynamics of biochemical systems in
general, and gene interaction networks in particular. Most often, statistical
analysis and inference of these systems is addressed by parametric approaches,
where the laws governing exogenous input processes, if present, are themselves
fixed in advance. Motivated by reporter gene systems, widely utilized in
biology to monitor gene activation at the individual cell level, we address the
analysis of reaction networks with state-affine reaction rates and arbitrary
input processes. We derive a generalization of the so-called moment equations
where the dynamics of the network statistics are expressed as a function of the
input process statistics. In stationary conditions, we provide a spectral
analysis of the system and elaborate on connections with linear filtering. We
then apply the theoretical results to develop a method for the reconstruction
of input process statistics, namely the gene activation autocovariance
function, from reporter gene population snapshot data, and demonstrate its
performance on a simulated case study