During HIV-1 infection in human primary plasmacytoid DCs, autophagy plays a key role in presenting the HIV-1 RNA genome to its cognate immune receptor Toll-like receptor-7 (TLR7) in endosomes, leading to the induction of IFNα (Lee et al., 2007; Zhou et al., 2012). Here, TLR7 is linked to HIV-1 infection.