Apoptosis is essential for clearance of potentially injurious inflammatory cells and subsequent efficient resolution of inflammation. Here we report that human neutrophils contain functionally active cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), and that structurally diverse CDK inhibitors induce caspase-dependent apoptosis and override powerful anti-apoptosis signals from survival factors such as granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). We show that the CDK inhibitor R-roscovitine (Seliciclib or CYC202) markedly enhances resolution of established neutrophil-dependent inflammation in carrageenan-elicited acute pleurisy, bleomycin-induced lung injury, and passively induced arthritis in mice. In the pleurisy model, the caspase inhibitor zVAD-fmk prevents R-roscovitine-enhanced resolution of inflammation, indicating that this CDK inhibitor augments inflammatory cell apoptosis. We also provide evidence that R-roscovitine promotes apoptosis by reducing concentrations of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1. Thus, CDK inhibitors enhance the resolution of established inflammation by promoting apoptosis of inflammatory cells, thereby demonstrating a hitherto unrecognized potential for the treatment of inflammatory disorders.

Let a random sample of size n be taken from a distribution having a density depending on a real parameter 8, and let 8 have an absolutely continuous prior distribution with density 17'(8). We give a rigorous proof that, under suitable regularity conditions, the posterior distribution of 8 will, when n tends to infinity, be asymptotically normal with mean equal to the maximumlikelihood estimator and variance equal to the reciprocal of the second derivative of the logarithm of the likelihood function evaluated at the maximum-likelihood estimator, independently of the form of 17'(8).

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