The M 2 ion channel protein of influenza A virus is essential for mediating protein-protein dissociation during the virus uncoating process that occurs when the virus is in the acidic environment of the lumen of the secondary endosome. The difficulty of determining the ion selectivity of this minimalistic ion channel is due in part to the fact that the channel activity is so great that it causes local acidification in the expressing cells and a consequent alteration of reversal voltage, V rev . We have confirmed the high proton selectivity of the channel (1.5-2.0 ؋ 10 6 ) in both oocytes and mammalian cells by using four methods as follows: 1) comparison of V rev with proton equilibrium potential; 2) measurement of pH in and V rev while Na The M 2 protein of influenza A virus is thought to function as an ion channel that permits protons to enter virus particles during virion uncoating in endosomes. In addition, in influenza virus-infected cells, the M 2 protein causes the equilibration of pH between the acidic lumen of the trans-Golgi network and the cytoplasm (reviewed in Refs. 1 and 2). The activity of the M 2 ion channel is inhibited by the antiviral drug amantadine (3-5). The mature M 2 protein consists of a 23-residue N-terminal extracellular domain, a single internal hydrophobic domain of 19 residues that acts as a transmembrane domain and forms the pore of the channel, and a 54-residue cytoplasmic tail (6). Chemical cross-linking studies showed the M 2 protein to exist minimally as a homotetramer (7-9). Statistical analysis of the ion channel activity of mixed oligomers also indicated that a homotetramer is the minimal active oligomeric form of the protein (10).Despite the small size of the active M 2 oligomer, several lines of evidence indicate that ion channel activity is intrinsic to the M 2 protein. First, ion channel activity has been observed in three different expression systems, Xenopus oocytes (3, 11, 12), mammalian cells (5, 13), and yeast (14). Second, M 2 channel activity has also been recorded in artificial lipid bilayers from a reconstituted peptide corresponding to the transmembrane domain of the M 2 protein (15) and from purified M 2 protein (16). Thus, due to its structural simplicity, the M 2 ion channel is a potentially useful model for the study of ion channels in general.Although a great deal of evidence indicates H ϩ is the biologically relevant ion for the role of M 2 protein in the life cycle of the influenza virus (1, 3, 17-22), other ions have been shown to be capable of flowing through the channel (12). In addition, the ion selectivity measured for the M 2 channel has been found to differ depending on whether the activity was measured in Xenopus oocytes or mammalian cells. When M 2 protein was expressed in oocytes, V rev was found to differ from the proton equilibrium potential, E Hϩ as [H ϩ ] out was varied (12). On the other hand, when M 2 protein was expressed in MEL cells, V rev was found to agree with E Hϩ (5). In a recent study (23), we found I Hϩ of the M 2 ion channel to...