Clade C, which includes CLEs from R. turanicus (CRt), a pathogen-derived endosymbiont along with strains causing opportunistic human skin infections [42,43,44,45,46], was comprised of the sequences obtained from Rhipicephalus in both 16S rDNA and groEL gene-based trees (Figure 2 and Figure 3). Here, HSPD1 is linked to skin infection.