$re = '/^(.*?)\d\d[a-z](.*?)(?:\d\d[a-z](.*))?(?:\d\d[a-z](.*))?(?:\d\d[a-z](.*))?$/m';
$str = 'aaaa68acl2s4fwdds#$s
41bssss2s3s4s2d3rffd
41bssss2s3s4s2d53rff';
$subst = "\1\2\3\4\5";
$result = preg_replace($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