Abstract
Quantum mechanical methods are used to simulate interactions between glycine and polynucleotide base sequences. High-magnitude, configurationally specific interactions with features similar to Watson-Crick base pairing are obtained. Glycine manifests preferential affinities in complexing with the stacked base pairs. The feasibility of selective interaction between polar amino acids and polynucleotide base sequences is considered. The implications of such interactions for the origin of the genetic code are discussed.