The effect of IL-1β on cytokine and chemokine production by human preadipocytes has been examined. Preadipocytes were incubated with IL-1β, and cytokine and chemokine release was measured at 24 h by protein arrays, while the expression of cytokine/chemokine genes was assessed by qPCR at 4 and 24 h. IL-1β stimulated the secretion of multiple cytokines/chemokines, including IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-13, MCP-4, TNFα and IP-10. IL-10 was not released by un-stimulated preadipocytes, while IL-6 exhibited the greatest response to IL-1β (453-fold increase). IL-16 and IL-12p40 did not respond to IL-1β. qPCR demonstrated that IL-1β markedly stimulated CCL3, CSF3 and CXCL10 expression at 4 h (>900-fold mRNA increase). A time-course indicated that while CCL13 (encoding MCP-4) exhibited minimal basal expression in preadipocytes, expression increased progressively following differentiation. Human preadipocytes are highly sensitive to IL-1β, the cytokine stimulating a major inflammatory response in these cells similar to that in mature adipocytes.