The neonatal lupus erythematosus syndrome.

Available data support the idea that the neonatal lupus erythematosus syndrome results from an autoantibody produced in the mother and passed across the placenta to the fetus. Despite the evidence for the presence of the Ro(SSA) autoantigen both in the skin and heart and the almost universal presence of the Ro(SSA) autoantibody in mothers of infants with neonatal lupus, there are emerging data to suggest that La(SSB) and, rarely, nRNP antibodies play an important pathologic role in some cases of the neonatal lupus syndrome.