VWF and Sepsis: Secondly, in the process of endothelial cell injury and apoptosis induced by sepsis, von Willebrand factor (vWF), expressed during these events, further enhances platelet activation and aggregation through glycoprotein receptors (GPVI and GPIbα--IX-V) on the platelet membrane (Engelmann and Massberg, 2013; Wang et al., 2018).