Changes in membrane fluidity have been proposed as a signal for sensors of osmotic stress in other bacteria. It is therefore tempting to speculate that an induction of the parts of the epa gene cluster in the present study may be related to a NaCl-induced reduction in membrane fluidity in V583, however this hypothesis was not further tested. Transmission electron microscopy assessment of the cell envelope of E. faecalis did not reveal any obvious phenotypic changes in salt stressed cells compared to untreated cells, hence we failed to reproduced the observations reported by Teng and coworkers. Human cytomegalovirus, the prototype member of the herpesvirus subfamily Betaherpesvirinae, is a ubiquitous virus with seroprevalences ranging from 45 to 100% in the adult population. Primary infection or reactivation usually remains asymptomatic; however, the virus can cause serious illness in newborns and immunosuppressed individuals such as transplant recipients and AIDS patients. HCMV has the largest genome of all human herpesviruses, with a size of approximately 235 kbp. The genome consists of two unique fragments, the unique long and unique short regions, which are both flanked by a pair of inverted repeats, termed terminal/internal repeat long and internal/terminal repeat short. Four genomic isomers are present in equimolar concentrations through inversion of UL and US relative to each other. The first complete genome sequence of HCMV, derived from the highly passaged laboratory strain AD169, was published in 1990 with 208 open reading frames predicted as proteinencoding. Through comparison of different laboratory strains and isolates passaged more moderately on cultured human fibroblasts, it has been well established that AD169 contains major genome rearrangements. These affect a region at the 39 end of the UL region, commonly referred to as the UL/b’ region, resulting in the loss of a 15 kbp fragment which encodes 19 additional ORFs. The HCMV genetic map was further refined by genome comparisons with chimpanzee cytomegalovirus and full genome sequencing of a handful additional clinical isolates. The current HCMV genetic map as annotated on the HCMV reference sequence Merlin contains 170 genes, some of which are only defined theoretically. In fact, recent publications defining the HCMV transcriptome have drawn a very sophisticated picture including alternative splicing and antisense transcription, which could redefine our understanding of the HCMV coding capacity. The functionality of these products still awaits further confirmation. The determination of the complete genome sequence of additional, clinically representative isolates could assist in a better definition of the HCMV genetic map through comparative genomic approaches. During the last years, next-generation sequencing has immensely impacted the genomics field.