Adenine base editor for knockout of proteins: A practical guide from design to analysis with updated MultiEditRbatch

Adenine base editors (ABEs) are a promising yet underutilized tool for inducing protein knockout compared to Cas9 nuclease, owing in part to a lack of user-friendly platforms for reagent design and implementation. Here, we present a comprehensive workflow to achieve high-efficiency gene knockouts with ABE as an alternative to Cas9 nuclease-based approaches. This includes optimized guide RNA (gRNA) design using SpliceR, a web-based application, followed by genomic and functional validation of ABE-mediated knockouts for several target genes. We validated gRNAs for 14 immunologically relevant targets, using both NGG and NG PAM compatible ABE8e-variants in primary immune cells. To facilitate data analysis, we developed MultiEditRbatch, an updated version of MultiEditR as a user-friendly analysis tool with addition of batch mode for high-throughput analysis of Sanger sequencing data. MultiEditRbatch is available as a web-based application and an R package, enabling robust assessment of base editing outcomes.