TLR7 and autoimmune disease: So far, there is no evidence for a higher expression of TLR7 genes in pDCs from women in humans (51, 63), though TLR7 gene duplication has been associated with autoreactive B cell responses in mice (64) and increased levels of TLR7 and TLR8 have been found in PBMCs of patients with the primary Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease with a female sex imbalance (65).