Supramolecular assembled macroscopic soft scaffolds of thioindigo amphiphiles as cell-material interfaces

Biocompatible synthetic supramolecular systems have been proven success in fabricating regenerative biomedical materials with intrinsic functionality, tunability, and stimuli-responsiveness. However, it remains highly challenging to develop a supramolecular soft scaffold that allows transferring intrinsic microscopic aligned structural properties to cell attachments. Herein, we report a thioindigo bola-amphiphile (TIA) that is equipped with long alkyl-linker to connect the carboxylic acid end-group on the opposite side. Though photoresponsiveness of TIA is hindered in aqueous medium, it can be slightly improved by utilizing a co-solvent system or doping TIA with other amphiphiles. Electron microscopies and X-ray diffraction analysis suggest that a large aspect ratio of TIA nanostructures assembled into macroscopic soft scaffold with high degree of unidirectional alignment. The fabricated TIA macroscopic soft scaffold is further incubated with hMSCs, in revealing unidirectional aligned cell attachments. This work could provide an alternative strategy towards development of next-generation biocompatible soft functional materials.