During translation, usually only one in Ϸ400 misincorporations affects the function of a nascent protein, because only chemically similar near-cognate amino acids are misincorporated in place of the cognate one. The deleterious misincorporation of a chemically dissimilar noncognate amino acid during the selection process is precluded by the presence of a tRNA at the ribosomal E-site. However, the selection of first aminoacyl-tRNA, directly after initiation, occurs without an occupied E-site, i.e., when only the P-site is filled with the initiator tRNA and thus should be highly error-prone. Here, we show how bacterial ribosomes have solved this accuracy problem: In the absence of a Shine-Dalgarno (SD) sequence, the first decoding step at the A-site after initiation is extremely error-prone, even resulting in the significant incorporation of noncognate amino acids. In contrast, when a SD sequence is present, the incorporation of noncognate amino acids is not observed. This is precisely the effect that the presence of a cognate tRNA at the E-site has during the elongation phase. These findings suggest that during the initiation phase, the SD interaction functionally compensates for the lack of codon-anticodon interaction at the E-site by reducing the misincorporation of near-cognate amino acids and prevents noncognate misincorporation. E-site ͉ translational errorsT he binding of aminoacyl-tRNAs to the ribosome is dictated by the complementarity between the anticodon of the tRNA and the codon of the mRNA. To ensure the high fidelity of translation, the correct stereochemistry of the mRNA-tRNA codon-anticodon interaction is monitored by components of the small ribosomal subunit in a process known as decoding (reviewed in ref. 1). During decoding, the first and second nucleotide positions (in terms of the codon) of the mRNA-tRNA duplex are closely monitored, whereas interaction at the third or wobble position is less strictly recognized. Consistently, the misincorporation of the wrong amino acids into polypeptide chains usually occurs through the binding of nearcognate aminoacyl-tRNAs, i.e., those tRNAs carrying an anticodon similar to that of the cognate aminoacyl-tRNA, rather than noncognate aminoacyl-tRNAs, which carry dissimilar anticodons. Nascent polypeptide chains are surprisingly tolerant to misincorporation, with only one in Ϸ400 misincorporations being deleterious for the protein's activity (reviewed in ref.2). The reason for this is that usually near-cognate aminoacyl-tRNAs are selected instead of the cognate aminoacyl-tRNA, and the genetic code lexicon is organized in such a way that near-cognate tRNAs bear amino acids that are chemically similar to those carried by the cognate tRNA. For example, the misincorporation of an aspartate (codon: GAU/C) by near-cognate Asp-tRNA, instead of glutamate (GAA/G) by the cognate Glu-tRNA, both incorporate acidic amino acids. The middle and, in most cases, the first position of a codon are almost never misread, even under error-inducing conditions such as high magnesiu...