A particularly rich natural source of F420 is Mycobacterium smegmatis, in which several dozen enzymes use F420 instead of the related cofactor FMN used by homologous enzymes in most other species.
Posebno bogat prirodni izvor F420 je Mycobacterium smegmatis, u kojoj nekoliko desetina enzima koristi F420 umesto srodnog kofaktora FMN koji koriste homologni enzimi većine drugih vrsta.