IL1B and infection: IL-1β plays a multifunctional role in the immune response to induce cytokine production, enhance T-cell activation and antigen recognition, guide innate immune cells to the site of infection (Dinarello 2011; van de Veerdonk and Netea 2013), and induce activation of the NF-κB signaling cascade to induce cytokine production, which results in the transcriptional activation of genes encoding chemokines and various pro-inflammatory mediators (Kanneganti et al., 2007).