Properties of pointed and connected Hopf algebras of finite Gelfand-Kirillov dimension

Let $H$ be a pointed Hopf algebra. We show that under some mild assumptions $H$ and its associated graded Hopf algebra $\gr H$ have the same Gelfand-Kirillov dimension. As an application, we prove that the Gelfand-Kirillov dimension of a connected Hopf algebra is either infinity or a positive integer. We also classify connected Hopf algebras of GK-dimension three over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero.