Congenital Heart Block Maternal Sera Autoantibodies Target an Extracellular Epitope on the α1G T-Type Calcium Channel in Human Fetal Hearts

Background Congenital heart block (CHB) is a transplacentally acquired autoimmune disease associated with anti-Ro/SSA and anti-La/SSB maternal autoantibodies and is characterized primarily by atrioventricular (AV) block of the fetal heart. This study aims to investigate whether the T-type calcium channel subunit α1G may be a fetal target of maternal sera autoantibodies in CHB.