{"doi":"10.1093/cid/ciab627","title":"Congenital Human Cytomegalovirus Infection Is Associated With Decreased Transplacental IgG Transfer Efficiency Due to Maternal Hypergammaglobulinemia","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Placentally transferred maternal immunoglobulin G (IgG) protects against pathogens in early life, yet vertically transmitted infections can interfere with transplacental IgG transfer. Although human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common placentally-transmitted viral infection worldwide, the impact of congenital HCMV (cCMV) infection on transplacental IgG transfer has been underexplored. METHODS: We evaluated total and antigen-specific maternal and cord blood IgG levels and transplacental IgG transfer efficiency in a US-based cohort of 93 mother-infant pairs including 27 cCMV-infected and 66 cCMV-uninfected pairs, of which 29 infants were born to HCMV-seropositive nontransmitting mothers and 37 to HCMV-seronegative mothers. Controls were matched on sex, race/ethnicity, maternal age, and delivery year. RESULTS: Transplacental IgG transfer efficiency was decreased by 23% (95% confidence interval [CI] 10-36%, P = .0079) in cCMV-infected pairs and 75% of this effect (95% CI 28-174%, P = .0085) was mediated by elevated maternal IgG levels (ie, hypergammaglobulinemia) in HCMV-transmitting women. Despite reduced transfer efficiency, IgG levels were similar in cord blood from infants with and without cCMV infection. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that cCMV infection moderately reduces transplacental IgG transfer efficiency due to maternal hypergammaglobulinemia; however, infants with and without cCMV infection had similar antigen-specific IgG levels, suggesting comparable protection from maternal IgG acquired via transplacental transfer.","journal":"Clinical Infectious Diseases","year":2021,"id":199258,"datarank":0.3453877639491069,"base_score":2.302585092994046,"endowment":2.302585092994046,"self_citation_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9651,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":497177,"name":"Shuk Hang Li","orcid":"0000-0001-8462-6657","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325723,"name":"Jillian H. Hurst","orcid":"0000-0001-5079-9920","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":464952,"name":"Zidanyue Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-4843-4313","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":429764,"name":"Donna Niedzwiecki","orcid":"0000-0002-3566-0450","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240903,"name":"Genevieve G. Fouda","orcid":"0000-0002-0960-1019","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298497,"name":"Joanne Kurtzberg","orcid":"0000-0002-3370-0703","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338823,"name":"Kyle M. Walsh","orcid":"0000-0002-5879-9981","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240902,"name":"Sallie R. Permar","orcid":"0000-0003-1438-4554","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338821,"name":"Eleanor C. Semmes","orcid":"0000-0003-2595-1948","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:36.595945Z","pmid":"34260701","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}