UC Merced

This dissertation describes the work that I performed with a team to develop the AddTag method for genome editing. First, I introduce genome editing through CRISPR/Cas-induced homology-directed repair, and I introduce the Candida albicans biological system (Chapter 1). Next, I describe how AddTag editing utilizes CRISPR/Cas-induced homology-directed repair to edit the C. albicans genome, and then the process of validating the edits through phenotyping, sequencing, and PCR (Chapter 2). I introduce the ADDTAG software which assists with AddTag editing. First, I describe how ADDTAG identifies genome targets for RNA-guided nucleases (Chapter 3). Then I demonstrate how the software constructs artificial sequences for use as genome repair templates. Lastly, I explain a computational method for producing a set of verification PCR primers for determining if genome edits are successful (Chapter 4).