$re = '/\t([^: ]{1,5}):([^: ]*):([^: ]*):([^: ]*):([^: ]*):([^: ]*):([^: \t]*)/m';
$str = '1 13302 rs180734498 C T 564172 VQSRTrancheSNP99.60to99.80 BaseQRankSum=0.35;ClippingRankSum=0.062;DB;ExcessHet=0.0012;FS=5.483;InbreedingCoeff=0.0501;MQ=26.09;MQ0=0;MQRankSum=-3.805;QD=6.19;ReadPosRankSum=-1.494;SOR=1.191;VQSLOD=-0.9551;culprit=QD;DP=182805;AF=0.279;MLEAC=1817;MLEAF=0.279;AN=4308;AC=1464 GT:AD:DP:GQ:PGT:PID:PL ./.:0,0:0:0::.:. ./.:0,0:0:0:.:.:. ./.:0,0:0:0::.:. ./.:0,0:0:0:0,4,9:.:.';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
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