library_construction_protocol: Liver was flushed with physiological salt solution, removed and snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at −80 °C. Total RNA was extracted from liver tissue samples of three animals per hibernation phase using Nucleospin (Machery Nagel, Düren, Germany). Concentrations were measured using Nanodrop and processed for RNA sequencing (RNAseq) by NXTGNT (www.nxtgnt.com). RNA quality was checked using a Bioanalyzer RNA 6000 nano chip assay and Ribogreen assay (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA). 437ng RNA per sample was used for further analysis. cDNA libraries were prepared for sequencing using Truseq stranded mRNA library prep (Illumina, San Diego, CA. USA) according to protocol. Sequencing was performed on a NextSeq500 High output flow cell, generating single-end 75bp reads.