Functional annotation showed that CTCs not only harbored cancer-driver gene mutations, including frequent mutations of EGFR and TP53 shared with primary and/or progressive tumors, but also particularly harbored cell cycle–regulated or stem cell–related gene mutations, including SHKBP1, NUMA1, ZNF143, MUC16, ORC1, PON1, PELP1, etc., most of which derived from primary tumor samples and played crucial roles in chemo-drug resistance and metastasis for NSCLCs. Here, MUC16 is linked to cancer.