Steady-State and Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of F420 Extracted from Methanogen Cells and Its Utility as a Marker for Fecal Contamination

Ashby Kd, Casey Ta, Rasmussen Ma, Petrich Jw

(2001). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 49(3) , 1123-1127. doi: 10.1021/jf000689r. Article   Pubmed

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Excerpts

Coenzyme F420 is ubiquitous among methanogens and serves metabolically as an electron donor for the reduction of carbon dioxide to methane

Its trivial name is derived from the 420 nm absorbance maximum observed for the oxidized form of the coenzyme. This form of the molecule exhibits a blue-green fluorescence at 470 nm.

This fluorescent property has also been used by microbiologists to identify methanogenic bacteria by fluorescence microscopy.