Bio-essential Inorganic Molecular Nanowires as a Bioactive Muscle Extracellular-Matrix-Mimicking Material

Many physiochemical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of muscle tissues, such as nanometer scale dimension, nanotopography, negative charge, and elasticity, must be carefully reproduced to fabricate scaffold materials mimicking muscle tissues. Hence, we developed a muscle tissue ECM-mimicking scaffold using Mo₆S₃I₆ inorganic molecular wires (IMWs). Composed of bio-essential elements and having a nanofibrous structure with a diameter of ∼1 nm and a negative surface charge with high stability, Mo₆S₃I₆ IMWs are ideal for mimicking natural ECM molecules. Once Mo₆S₃I₆ IMWs were patterned on a polydimethylsiloxane surface with an elasticity of 1877.1 ± 22.2 kPa, that is, comparable to that of muscle tissues, the proliferation and α-tubulin expression of myoblasts enhanced significantly. Additionally, the repetitive one-dimensional patterns of Mo₆S₃I₆ IMWs induced the alignment and stretching of myoblasts with enhanced α-tubulin expression and differentiation into myocytes. This study demonstrates that Mo₆S₃I₆ IMWs are promising for mimicking the ECM of muscle tissues.