$re = '/.*?={([^{}]*)}.*/s';
$str = '={Proofs that yield nothing but their validity or all languages in NP have zero-knowledge proof systems},\\n
author={Goldreich, Oded and Micali, Silvio and Wigderson, Avi},\\n
journal={Journal of the ACM (JACM)},\\n
volume={38},\\n
number={3},\\n
pages={690--728},\\n
year={1991},\\n
publisher={ACM New York, NY, USA}\\n}';
$subst = "\1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php