$re = '/(NOT-AGK-XL\.(?!\w))|AGK-XL\.(?!\w)/';
$str = 'AGK-XL. and NOT-AGK-XL.';
$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