$re = '/(\d+ +)(AB|DE|RG|DU)/m';
$str = '23 AB 5400 DE 68 RG
33 DU 88 DE 8723 AB
55 RG 76 AB 92 DE';
$subst = "\1\2";
$result = preg_replace($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