Dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals represent a group of widespread environmental contaminants that are resistant to biological and chemical degradation and tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify throughout the food chain.GC / MS determination of dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals is limited in its application due to its high costs,time consuming,sophisticated operation procedures and training. Therefore, Chemical-Activated Luciferase Expression( CALUX) bioassay is increasingly being used by research and commercial laboratories or government agencies for the determination of dioxins and dioxin-like chemicals in food,feed,environmental samples and commercial products.The CALUX bioassay is a cell assay that uses recombinant cells containing luciferase reporter gene for the detection.This review describes the development of CALUX assay and its application,the mechanism of dioxin action and the analysis procedure. In comparison with the classical chemical analysis and other bioassay techniques,the CALUX bioassay has been proved to be a fast,sensitive,cost effective and high-throughput screening approach. It can be a powerful and promising tool for screening and analyzing dioxin and dioxin-like contaminants in food materials and food products.