Islet autoantibodies in cord blood: maternal, fetal, or neither?

In high-risk type 1 diabetes populations, up to 3% of the general population newborns may express islet autoantibodies in cord blood and the vast majority of those appear to be maternal autoantibodies that disappear usually before the age of 9 months. Despite recent progress in standardization of autoantibody assays, some of the findings appear to be artifacts or non-IgG-mediated binding phenomena. it remains unclear whether transplacentally transmitted maternal autoantibodies play any role in protecting the offspring of diabetic women from diabetes. The evidence for fetal production of islet autoantibodies is very limited and remains to be validated in large prospective studies currently underway. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.