[2] Mycofactocin is thought to play a role in redox pathways involving nicotinoproteins, enzymes with non-exchangeable bound nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD).

[3] This notion comes largely from comparative genomics work that highlighted the many parallels between mycofactocin and pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ).

[4] In both cases, maturation of the RiPP requires post-translational modification of a precursor peptide by a radical SAM enzyme, the system appears in very similar form in large numbers of species, the product appears to be used within the cell rather than exported, and several families of enzymes occur exclusively in bacteria with those systems.

The number of putatively mycofactocin-dependent oxidoreductases encoded by a single genome can be quite large: at least 19 for Rhodococcus jostii RHA1, and 26 for the short chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR) family alone in Mycobacterium avium.

Mycofactocin, therefore, is not a single compound, but instead a mixture of closely related electron carriers that differ in the nature of their attached oligosaccharides.