Telomerase vaccination has no detectable effect on SCID-repopulating and colony-forming activities in the bone marrow of cancer patients

These findings suggest that induction of tumor-lytic hTERT-specific T cells in vivo by vaccination does not result in a detectable decline in hematopoietic potential despite the expression of hTERT and major histocompatibility complex class I in bone marrow progenitors and stem cells. Thus, even for self-antigens such as telomerase, tumor immunity does not necessarily involve autoimmunity in normal tissues that share the target.