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.
Keywords: Mo6S3I6; inorganic molecular wire; microtubule assay; myoblast; scaffold.