Abstract
Environmental chemicals such as dioxin are known to have toxicities causing tumor promotion and serious reproductive and developmental defects. In this review, we focus on cell division, and discuss the effects of dioxin and related chemicals on the molecules involved in mitosis and/or meiosis. Dioxin affects various steps of biological processes including mitosis, meiosis, arrangement of chromosomal positioning and epigenetic regulation. Although the molecular mechanisms of these effects are still unclear, we provide recent findings of novel effects of dioxin and related compounds on them.
