$re = '/((?:\w+\W+){2})(\w)(\w*)(\w)/';
$str = 'useRs may fly into JFK or laGuardia';
$subst = "\1\U\2\E\3\U\4";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$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