Emerging clinical and experimental data suggest that the injury to the conduction system may happen through a two-stage process, which is detailed in a review by Wahren-Herlenius and Sonesson [21]. In the first step, maternal anti-Ro autoantibodies bind to foetal cardiomyocytes,

which leads to calcium dysregulation, calcium overload and subsequent apoptosis. Anti-La antibodies then subsequently bind to apoptotic cardiomyocytes, which escalate the inflammatory cascade, activating infiltrating macrophages that secrete proinflammatory and profibrotic cytokines. The subsequent evolution of more severe tissue damage, including fibrosis and calcification of conduction tissue and surrounding myocardium, the second step of the process, probably requires a genetic predisposition or susceptibility in the foetus particularly given the discordant influence of the maternal autoantibodies in twins and siblings of affected foetuses and lack of consistent findings find more in the offspring of sera-positive women. Approximately 1–3% of foetuses and infants whose mothers are autoantibody positive develop AVB, and the risk of recurrence in subsequent offspring

is 17–18% [22–24]. Although 20–30% of the mothers have well-defined autoimmune disease, most are clinically asymptomatic and are only recognized to have the autoantibodies after the diagnosis Selleck Seliciclib of AVB is made in the foetus [14, 22]. In a prospective study of 15,000 pregnant women in the metropolitan Toronto area, we found 2.8% to have anti-Ro and/or anti-La autoantibodies (unpublished data, Maternal Autoantibodies in Pregnancy prospective study in Metropolitan Toronto). Although the subgroup

of sera-positive women at greatest risk of having an affected foetus is still not fully known, clinical observations have identified risk factors. In addition to those with a previously affected foetus [22–24], women with anti-52 kD-Ro antibodies appear to be at increased risk of having an affected foetus, and the nearly universal presence of anti-52 kD-Ro in affected mothers has suggested an important role in Cyclin-dependent kinase 3 the pathogenesis of AVB [23, 25]. Although absolute antibody titres have not been previously consistently linked to risk, a recent single centre investigation by Jaeggi et al. in 186 autoantibody-positive women, including 59 asymptomatic mothers, suggested that cardiac manifestations of NLE in general are associated with moderate (≥50 U/ml, 15% incidence) or high (≥100 U/ml, 85% incidence) maternal anti-Ro antibody titres [26]. This study further found foetal and neonatal cardiac manifestations to be independent of anti-La titres. This finding is in contrast with an earlier multicentre retrospective study of Gordon et al. which examined antibody titres in 125 mostly clinically symptomatic mothers of children with NLE [25]. In their cohort, they found the child of an anti-Ro (52 kD)-positive mother to have a risk of 2% of having AVB, which increased to 3.1% if the mother was anti-La positive as well [25].