  We recall how parton distributions are constructed in a statistical physical
picture of the nucleon. The chiral properties of QCD lead to strong relations
between quarks and antiquarks distributions and the importance of the Pauli
exclusion principle is also emphasized. A global next-to-leading order QCD
analysis of unpolarized and polarized deep-inelastic scattering data allows to
determine a small number of free parameters. Some predictions are compared to
recent experimental results and we discuss the prospects of this physical
framework.
