Stratification by depression severity and sex, together with correlation and multivariate linear regression analyses, and cluster analysis, was used to examine associations between DC subsets and depressive symptom severity in females and males.<h4>Results</h4>Stratification by HAM-D17 scores revealed reduced counts of pDCs and increased frequencies of CD11c<sup>+</sup> cDCs in the peripheral blood (PB) of severely depressed participants compared to HC or mildly depressed patients, respectively. This evidence concerns the gene ITGAX and major depressive disorder.